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Multiplayer in Civ 5

I just wonder what the multiplayer will be in civ 5. Just imagine simultaneos turns there with that 1UPH system where you have to plan all your moves beforehand.And your opponent may ruin it with a single move of his single unit.It becomes a lottery. It'll be a massacre. And if you play without simultaneous turns it'll be too long to wait for the others to finish their turn.

How did it work in the other civs? what does it mean simultaneous moves? you do all your moves and dont have to wait for the other player to move?

Since there is a lack of quality MMO's out there (burned out of wow eq eve war etc) myself and wife have decided to try multiplayer in a genre we have never done so before and wish there was more info on it from the developers so we can see how/if it will work and be fun.

How did it work in the other civs? what does it mean simultaneous moves? you do all your moves and dont have to wait for the other player to move?

Since there is a lack of quality MMO's out there (burned out of wow eq eve war etc) myself and wife have decided to try multiplayer in a genre we have never done so before and wish there was more info on it from the developers so we can see how/if it will work and be fun.

I just wonder what the multiplayer will be in civ 5. Just imagine simultaneos turns there with that 1UPH system where you have to plan all your moves beforehand.And your opponent may ruin it with a single move of his single unit.It becomes a lottery. It'll be a massacre. And if you play without simultaneous turns it'll be too long to wait for the others to finish their turn.

I guess just like in real life. Whoever moves onto a particular hex first gets it. You can then decide your move based on that if you haven't moved somewhere else already. But be quick, they're blazing

I guess just like in real like. Whoever moves onto a particular hex first gets it. You can then decide your move based on that if you haven't moved somewhere else already. But be quick, they're blazing

It will ruin the whole strategy.With stacks of doom everyone has an opportunity to remake his attacking or deffensive tactics. With 1 UPH it becomes a lottery.Because you won't be able to plan war front, you never know what the other player will do.In sims moves it will all come to who was the first to bomb or take a good position or whose Internet is faster.It'll convert from TBS to RTS

I don't think simu MP will be as bad as you think. Remember Civ5 will also not have as many units to manage as Civ4 or Civ3, because of the IUPT limit, and the limited units per resources.

Wars will take place with smaller armies than in the past and fewer units to manage. Yes planning your moves and tactics in advance will be key to success, and taking and holding key terrain.

And we never knew what the enemy would do with his stack either, so that is really not a change. In some respects simu moves always was a bit RTSish, but it's a lesser evil than turn based combat.

CS

The thing is that you'll have to make your turns with your opponent simultaniously. 1UPH makes it deeper into strategy.And in multiplayer when players start a war with each other it becomes into whose finger on the mouse is faster.

Yes there will be, but PBEM, Hotseat and Piboss are not going to be released until after the game, with no specific date promised at all.

As to simu turns, it's not neccearily who's mouse finger is faster, though if you are day dreaming while at war that will be an issue, but computer speed and internet speed will effect this.

But in my experience with civ3 and Civ4 MP, good players are fine with the issues with simu moves combat, and they just don't put themselves in the position were one bad battle loses the game for them. That is the largest reason that simu moves are entrenched in the competitive MP world at Civplayers Leagues.

View of Simultaneous Moves

Even though all players move simultaneously, the Civ V processor could process all simultaneously, not sequentially.

Thus, if two sides move to a single hex, the speed of the player will not be a factor. Each player will see his move successfully completed but, when the turn is over, the processor will decide who gets into that hex.

For this to work out properly, the processor would have to be activated at the end of several phases; i.e. Building, Bombardment, Ranged Combat, Movement, Melee Combat.

Since the game is not released yet, no one has any idea if the phased processing will be implemented or all phases processed at once at the end of a turn.

Either way the players will have to agree and set in advance the minutes per turn and / or the minutes per phase.

Nope no joke, though I think it is highly unlikely they will charge for it. The delay is no doubt due to internal production issues, it likely just took so long to get basic MP ready for release that they knew they would not have time to polish the 3 other MP methods.

Even though all players move simultaneously, the Civ V processor could process all simultaneously, not sequentially.

Thus, if two sides move to a single hex, the speed of the player will not be a factor. Each player will see his move successfully completed but, when the turn is over, the processor will decide who gets into that hex.

But that's the point; in MP, the players are not moving similtaneously, they just have similtaneous turns. There *is* a difference. First to the spot gets it.

Originally Posted by SirMaru

For this to work out properly, the processor would have to be activated at the end of several phases; i.e. Building, Bombardment, Ranged Combat, Movement, Melee Combat.

See above, no longer necessary. Processor gets a break

Originally Posted by SirMaru

Either way the players will have to agree and set in advance the minutes per turn and / or the minutes per phase.

I just wonder what the multiplayer will be in civ 5. Just imagine simultaneos turns there with that 1UPH system where you have to plan all your moves beforehand.And your opponent may ruin it with a single move of his single unit.It becomes a lottery. It'll be a massacre. And if you play without simultaneous turns it'll be too long to wait for the others to finish their turn.

That'd be so fun. It'd be a larger massacre than WWII! Even better than simul turns.

I just wonder what the multiplayer will be in civ 5. Just imagine simultaneos turns there with that 1UPH system where you have to plan all your moves beforehand.And your opponent may ruin it with a single move of his single unit.It becomes a lottery. It'll be a massacre. And if you play without simultaneous turns it'll be too long to wait for the others to finish their turn.

Even if it'll be the way, the winners will be who will play the smartest by not making the moves that will let the enemy ruin it all with a single unit move. The rules are the same for everyone in either case, it's just a matter of who can play better and smarter within the rules, that's all to it.

Originally Posted by Aragorn83

It will ruin the whole strategy.With stacks of doom everyone has an opportunity to remake his attacking or deffensive tactics. With 1 UPH it becomes a lottery.Because you won't be able to plan war front, you never know what the other player will do.In sims moves it will all come to who was the first to bomb or take a good position or whose Internet is faster.It'll convert from TBS to RTS

That's exactly what some clueless people have said about Civ 4 five years ago, and despite it was SoD, not 1UPT. Somehow, it was fine anyway. Well, i guess there is enough clueless people still, after all these years, to claim the same about Civ 5.

Also, you're wrong about randomness. With a stack of doom, a single move with a random result commits your whole stack of doom to victory or valhalla. With 1UPH, an average unsuccessful move will unlikely to cost you more than one unit (or even less). That's one of the most basic rules of math statistics, a bigger number of random results leads to a lower deviation from an average result.

And you're wrong about planning and war front too. With stacks of doom, there is no constant contact with the enemy. With 1UPH you're in a constant contact (if you have enough forces for a battle) or the enemy is advancing to make a contact with you. It should be clear to you if you ever played wargames with 1UPH (that's just about any wargame i can think of).
Also, with 1UPH you can't hide your entire army and suprise the enemy with an entire army concentrated in one single square. If you want to attack with all your force, you can't do anything else but to form a war front and advance it (you just can't make your army to take less space than a war front). So, inherently, 1UPH is much more predictable than a Stack of Doom (and it's obvious, if you think about it).

All in all, i suggest you to evaluate your (wrong) assumptions more carefully before you post it on a forum of a >strategy< game, of all forums. You know, some people are actually checking what exactly are you writing here.

Originally Posted by Aragorn83

The thing is that you'll have to make your turns with your opponent simultaniously. 1UPH makes it deeper into strategy.And in multiplayer when players start a war with each other it becomes into whose finger on the mouse is faster.

As i'm saying time and again, micro is not limited by a figer speed or a mouse speed, even in RTS. Micro is limited by how fast you can make meaningful decisions. It's easy to make 3-4 targeted mouse clicks per second for just about anyone in a normal physical condition. But even top Korean pros who play Starcraft for a living don't beat APM (actions per minute) of 220 or so IIRC, and that includes orders with both a mouse and a keyboard, and a lot of fluff repeated orders at that too (so that's much less than 220 meaningful decisions per minute).

Even if it'll be the way, the winners will be who will play the smartest by not making the moves that will let the enemy ruin it all with a single unit move. The rules are the same for everyone in either case, it's just a matter of who can play better and smarter within the rules, that's all to it.

I don't know... most of what you say makes sense, it's certainly not going to be entirely based on any sort of twitch or speed. My objection is that it's based at all on twitch/speed. I'd just like it for there to be more MP stuff out there that's actually got no element of speed. Okay, turn time limits would make some degree of speed relevant, but not very. I play Cyanide's Blood Bowl online, and as long as everyone's happy with the turn time limit (especially keeping it longer than the 40s option), there's no speed-of-action involved at all. Of course, in that the problem of waiting for your turn is reduced by the fact that you get to watch everything the opponent does, and sometimes get to take actions (or make small decisions) yourself.

Maybe microturns would be good... if you and an opponent have any units within reach of one another, you take turns moving one unit, rather than whole turns. Would still take a lot of working out, and I can't see it actually having been used in CivV, but it would be a good compromise in principle.

I don't know... most of what you say makes sense, it's certainly not going to be entirely based on any sort of twitch or speed. My objection is that it's based at all on twitch/speed. I'd just like it for there to be more MP stuff out there that's actually got no element of speed. Okay, turn time limits would make some degree of speed relevant, but not very. I play Cyanide's Blood Bowl online, and as long as everyone's happy with the turn time limit (especially keeping it longer than the 40s option), there's no speed-of-action involved at all. Of course, in that the problem of waiting for your turn is reduced by the fact that you get to watch everything the opponent does, and sometimes get to take actions (or make small decisions) yourself.

Maybe microturns would be good... if you and an opponent have any units within reach of one another, you take turns moving one unit, rather than whole turns. Would still take a lot of working out, and I can't see it actually having been used in CivV, but it would be a good compromise in principle.

Indeed there is some element of speed in multiplayer CIV. That's quite necessary for most games, and most gamers. We simply don't have 4-5 hours to play a single game. It also adds a nice strategy layer to the game to understand how movement timing works. But if you'd truly rather play without the element of speed, that's possible too.

CIV4 multiplayer incorporated several different ways to play it, and I'm sure CIV5 will as well. You can play pit-boss, hot-seat, non-simultaneous turns, etc. All that's necessary is for you to find the people who also want to play those settings, and you probably won't find them in the normal game lobby. I'm pretty sure the Civ Fanatics website has threads for people who want to play these kinds of settings.

I dont understand why people are calling Ops post not an issue, The fact of the matter is war fronts, flanking and UPT mean you need MORE moves than ever before, Especially when you factor in lag, 5 second turn delay. and the like, the first person who advances to the war front will lose, because of the new positioning and flanking bonuses, and moving one unit per tile each individuality, to form a front you WILL have to treat the game as an RTS because if you DONT move fast enough they will destroy your entire force one by one with their neatly ordered block with flanking and assisted units while your guy gets penalties because you couldn't click his allies to fill up his flanks fast enough.

Unless fraxis invests in some kind of grouped movement like in the total war series this is going to be a big problem in multiplayer games.

I dont understand why people are calling Ops post not an issue, The fact of the matter is war fronts, flanking and UPT mean you need MORE moves than ever before, Especially when you factor in lag, 5 second turn delay. and the like, the first person who advances to the war front will lose, because of the new positioning and flanking bonuses, and moving one unit per tile each individuality, to form a front you WILL have to treat the game as an RTS because if you DONT move fast enough they will destroy your entire force one by one with their neatly ordered block with flanking and assisted units while your guy gets penalties because you couldn't click his allies to fill up his flanks fast enough.

Unless fraxis invests in some kind of grouped movement like in the total war series this is going to be a big problem in multiplayer games.

You may need more moves. But the point Ellstar is making that no matter what the mechanics are 1UPT or SoD, good players that play smart are never caught in a situation were who moves first is crtical to winning the game. If a single battle decides your game, your strategy/tacitcs was not good to start with.

I dont understand why people are calling Ops post not an issue, The fact of the matter is war fronts, flanking and UPT mean you need MORE moves than ever before, Especially when you factor in lag, 5 second turn delay. and the like, the first person who advances to the war front will lose, because of the new positioning and flanking bonuses, and moving one unit per tile each individuality, to form a front you WILL have to treat the game as an RTS because if you DONT move fast enough they will destroy your entire force one by one with their neatly ordered block with flanking and assisted units while your guy gets penalties because you couldn't click his allies to fill up his flanks fast enough.

Unless fraxis invests in some kind of grouped movement like in the total war series this is going to be a big problem in multiplayer games.

If you're making a first move then you pick the time when you do it. Your opponent can't be ready to respond all the time so to counter-attack you instantly. You, on the other hand, can think beforehand and then make a very fast chain of moves without thinking at all. Also, opponent should think how to respond to your moves in the most effective way, but you're still making your moves so situation changes constantly and an opponent needs to re-evaluate decisions in real-time. It's not easy to respond the right way under such pressure.

So, the only case when the responding player will have an advantage is when he's completely ready to act the same instant you start to do your moves (doing nothing but hovering a mouse cursor over the units he plans to respond with), and he has the plan how exactly should he move in responce to your actions. Only in that case you may face the scenario you describe, but it's a highly unlikely event, and your losses will not be as high as you think anyway.

In either case, you should have some advantage so to start an offensive, so maybe you'll lose some of your advantage, so what? You'll have a solid front this time, losses can be replenished before you continue the offensive, and that time the enemy will not have an advantage for sure. So i don't see what's the problem, even theoretically.